DALLAS, TX.- Contemporary pottery, including a San Ildefonso etched redware jar by famed potter, Tony Da, and a selection of important Sioux beaded and painted hide objects, including a war shirt, a bow case and quiver and a pictographic shield, anchor Heritage Auctions’ Nov. 10 American Indian Art Signature® auction at the company’s Design District Annex, 1518 Slocum Street. In addition to the pottery, beadwork, jewelry, weavings and baskets, more than 60 rare photographs of Native American warriors, families and delegations are offered.

“This is a richly diverse auction,” said Delia E. Sullivan, Heritage’s Senior American Indian Art Specialist and Consignment Director, “and is an especially important auction for pottery collectors. In the way of pre-historic pottery, we have a great selection of Casas Grande polychrome vessels, two of which are janus jars, as well as a wonderful Mimbres figural bowl. For the contemporary pottery collectors, we have works from multiple generations of the renowned Martinez, Tafoya, and Nampeyo families.”

An etched redware jar by Tony Da, the grandson of San Ildefonso matriarch and famous potter, Maria Martinez, is one of the stars of the auction. It is decorated on the shoulder with a finely etched band enclosing a pair of water serpents and inset with three turquoise stones and two rows of fine heishi shell. Also sporting fine etchings of fish and a small bear paw, the jar is expected to far exceed the $10,000 – 15,000 pre-sale estimate.

Among the 164 lots of pottery is a Santa Clara carved buffware jar by Nathan Youngblood, expected to bring $6,000+. A rare collaboration between Youngblood’s mother, Mela Tafoya, and grandmother, Margaret Tafoya, can be found in a unique Santa Clara carved blackware jar, which is estimated at $2,000+. Youngblood’s great-grandmother, Sarafine Tafoya, is represented in the auction with a carved redware bowl. Some other members of her clan, including Joseph Lonewolf, Grace Medicine Flower, Linda Tafoya Oyenque, and Apple Blossom, also have works in this auction.

A number of Sioux items are also on the auction block. A beaded hide war shirt, circa 1900, is decorated with sinew sewn beadwork and expected to sell for $20,000+. A beaded hide bowcase and quiver, circa 1880, is decorated with green, blue, white-heart red and yellow glass seed beads and trimmed with red wool trade cloth. Accompanied by a bow and four arrows, the lot is estimated at $15,000+. A pictographic painted hide shield, circa 1890, features a combat scene of three mounted Sioux opposing a Crow man with a bow and arrow, and is expected to bring $8,000+.

Additional hand-worked artifacts in the sale include a Crow woman’s beaded hide parade saddle, which is expected to bring $5,000+, and a fringed Ute beaded hide rifle scabbard, circa 1890, which carries an estimate of $5,000+.

Among the weavings is a Navajo moki serape, circa 1880, featuring natural shades of ivory, brown and indigo blue and aniline shades of salmon, with bands of alternating designs against a finely banded moki ground. Measuring 74 inches long, the serape is expected to bring $8,000+.

More than 60 lots of photography pertaining to the American Indian are featured – most came from a single collection. An 8 x 10 inch image titled Decorating Pottery by famed American Indian photographer Edward S. Curtis may bring $1,000+. An 1883 photo by Frank J. Haynes of Shoshone Indians during President Chester A. Arthur’s tour of Wyoming is expected to bring $1,500+ and a single lot of 10 carte-de-visite photos of Navajo Indians by Nicholas Brown and Son of Santa Fe, N.M., may bring $1,500+. The scarce grouping is by one of the earliest New Mexico photographers active in Santa Fe between 1866 and 1872.